‘The Originals’ Season 1: What should (and should not) happen to Hayley?

When The CW first announced its intentions of developing a Vampire Diaries spinoff series called The Originalslast January, some people were left scratching their heads when the two initial cast members announced were Joseph Morgan and Phoebe Tonkin.

Morgan made perfect sense; Klaus is an essential member of the original family and a dynamic character. Hayley, on the other hand, was a character introduced in season four as a werewolf friend of Tyler’s (Michael Trevino). Hayley was desperate to find her real family and that she’d helped Tyler break his sire bond.

Eventually, Klaus and Hayley had a one night stand and then through some weird loophole in nature (that we still don’t really understand), Hayley became pregnant with Klaus’ child and the French Quarter witches used her and the baby as a bargaining chip to get Klaus to help them. While we can see how this fits into the premise of The Originals, we’re still trying to figure out the character of Hayley.

To quote John Mayer, “you’re 22 girls in one and none of them know what they’re running from.” We’ve seen Hayley be a girl so desperate to find her family that she willingly sacrificed lives, we’ve seen her mourn her friends, we’ve seen her stand up to Klaus, we’ve seen her knock out Caroline, we’ve seen her drinking with Tyler, plotting with Shane, betraying Tyler, sleeping with Klaus and getting kidnapped by witches.

It’s enough to make anyone’s head spin. The writers have promised that Hayley’s storyline will become more fleshed out on The Originals and we’re looking forward to seeing where they plan to take the character. In the meantime, we’ve put together a list of what we want for Hayley and the one thing we definitely do not want to see happen.

Hayley needs a personality that sticks

Is she snarky? Is she misunderstood? Is she the guarded girl with a rough past or is she the tough girl who overcame her past and just wants to move forward? The fact that we don’t know the answer after the character appeared in eight episodes of TVD is not a good thing. The writers need to figure out what Hayley’s main personality is and then work on growing and shaping it from there. We’re fine with seeing her change as the series moves forward, but only if those changes make sense. Show us the things that shape who Hayley is and the decisions she makes and we’ll understand her better.

Bring on the werewolf side

Since Hayley is pregnant, we don’t expect to see her morphing into a wolf in the present, but give us flashbacks so we can see how Hayley reacted to the horrific change. We know that Hayley helped Tyler break his sire bond – how did she learn to do that? Was it purely Professor Shane’s (David Alpay) influence or is Hayley a special breed of werewolf? Part of the fun of watching a supernatural show is getting to see what makes the supernatural creatures tick and why they’re unique.

Photo Credit: Instagram

Give the girl a real friend

One of the best things about TVD is the genuine love and friendship between Elena (Nina Dobrev), Bonnie (Kat Graham) and Caroline (Candice Accola). While those girls have a special bond since they’ve been friends forever, we’d still like to see Hayley have a true friend who she can trust with her secrets and who will always have her back. Rebekah (Claire Holt) is our first choice, partially out of our bias because of Holt and Tonkin’s real life friendship and partially out of the fact that Rebekah needs that kind of true friendship in her life too.

Develop a relationship with Elijah

If you’ve seen the director’s cut of the pilot or the deleted scenes from the season four DVD, then you’ve seen the fantastic chemistry between Tonkin and Daniel Gillies. We definitely want to see this explored, but only as a SLOW BUILD. Elijah is still in love with Katherine (Dobrev) and Hayley is pregnant with his brother’s baby. Clearly there are issues, but let’s see how the two tackle those issues. Maybe they’ll end up being BFFs like Stefan and Caroline or maybe they’ll be the most root-worthy couple on the show.

For the love of everything holy, please don’t make Hayley the victim

We understand why the witches took Hayley hostage in the backdoor pilot to negotiate the deal with Elijah and Klaus. We can live with that because it was quickly resolved. But we do not want to see Hayley as the damsel in distress week after week. We’re not saying that she can’t get into trouble; just let her be the one to get herself out of it. She might be pregnant, but she’s still a werewolf. The same goes for her past: nearly every character on TV has a terrible past, but nothing is worse than when a show presents that as an automatic reason to like or feel sorry for the character. Again, show us Hayley moving forward and learning from her mistakes.

What would you like to see happen to Hayley this season? Check out Phoebe Tonkin’s take on her character and then hit the comments and let us know what you think.

The Originals premieres Thursday, Oct. 3 at 9/8c before moving to its regular night and time Tuesday, Oct. 8 at 8/7c on The CW.

About the author

Mandy Treccia

Mandy Treccia has served as TVSource Magazine’s Executive Editor since 2016, formerly as Editorial Director from 2012-2016. She is an avid TV watcher and card carrying fan girl prone to sudden bursts of emotion, ranging from extreme excitement to blind rage during her favorite shows and has on more than once occasion considered having a paper bag on hand to get her through some tough TV moments. Her taste in TV tends to rival that of a thirteen-year-old girl, but she’s okay with that. Follow her on Twitter at @SourceMandy.

27 Comments

Hayley is a MUCH better character than Elena ever was, at least Hayley can defend herself and does not have people sacrificing herself to save her. People hate Hayley but how can you hate her and love Elena? Elena made so many people die just so she can eventually become a vampire. Elena has nothing to do with this show but I really do not think they should kill her off, her romance with Elijah spices up the show unlike Elena fooling around with both brothers. #FuckTVD

Just kill her off! The more I see of her, the less interested in The Originals I am. She is an awfully written character, I don’t know what to make of her, one minute she’s the victim, next she’s snarking to Klaus. AND Elijah and Hayley together make me sick. And just to mention, they picked the worst actress. I’m sorry I know hating on the actress isn’t right, but she is a terrible actress.
In TVD she was a bitch but I thought I’ll give her a chance, but no.. I just can’t anymore. And if anybody is questioning, no, I’m not a Klaroline fan.

[…] brothers. It’ll be interesting to watch that story unfold because as we said in our Hayley wish list, both women need a friend, but it’s not exactly an ideal situation. We’re curious whether their […]

Hayley is a curse, the original’s curse cause she made them very OOC the show’s curse it probably gonna fail because of her and the magical baby and finally PT’s curse this character bring nothing good to phoebe.

But the entire fandom does not hate her. Just look at the comments on this post. More than one is pro-Hayley. People are entitled to their own opinions. Every single person who tunes into the show will not like or dislike the same things/characters/stories as every other person.

I love Hayley and I agree that she needs to be explored a little more in The originals because in TVD, the writers didn’t give her a good storyline. I am interested in her journey in The Originals and Phoebe is one of my favorite actresses along with Claire. Can’t wait to see her. I think she will make a fresh and interesting addition in the spin off.

Hayley does need a personality, preferably one that does not make a victim. She has more chances of winning viewers’ sympathy as a villain. While I agree with the idea of Hayley having a bff and I understand that Claire and Phoebe are real life bffs, I still find it problematic on the show. But I’d still swallow that as long as they stop forcing Hayley and Elijah down my throat. He’s all classy with his suits, not to mention in love with Katherine since she was human, and Hayley is pregnant with his brother’s baby (which I still hope is a hoax somehow). Long story short, too much trouble, might as well kill her off.

Just seems a lot of trouble to save a character. Why take someone the fans hate and turn her into lead (when it should be Rebekah btw) instead of using someone new. Wanted a pregnancy? It’s the worst idea ever but fine. So why not make Klaus have sex with a new interesting character and make her pregnant? Looks like Julie wants to angry the fans. Most of fans are klaroliners and making him having sex and make pregnant a girl who everybody hates is a big slap in the face. And then they blame the fans for not watching…

Hayley and Elijah, really? It’s so soap opera, hook up with the brother of your baby’s father. Then what? They’ll all live together and be one happy family? Hayley is lost, the fans don’t like the character (for good reasons) and there’s nothing they can do at this point to fix her.

Hayley is just the worst. I don’t understand her, I don’t understand why they’re trying to make her a protagonist when 90% of the fanbase can’t even stand her, and I don’t understand where on earth they’re even taking this magical pregnancy. That said, I do hope that they can make her at least tolerable for the sake of the show. I don’t want to be annoyed every time she does something super weird, so if they can contextualize her and her story in a way that doesn’t make us feel like we’re being manipulated into liking her, then that would be great.

They don’t even need to change her personality. All they need to do is convince us that their bad writing was intentional. Show us that Hayley is whoever she thinks she needs to be to survive or get what she wants. No one has ever had an issue with Katherine being all over the place because they’ve shown why she shifts personalities and allegiances to suit her needs. Do the same with Hayley. Don’t excuse what she’s done or turn her into a victim by bringing it up over and over again, just give a why.

I say kill her or make her a bad ass villain, but don’t try to make her a poor victim to gain the audience sympathies – it’s kind of late for that. Haven’t seen a fandom hate on a character (and a lead at that) that much in a while, it should be either a very interesting season or a very short one.